


Returning Always To The Light

by faerymorstan



Category: Den lille Havfrue | The Little Mermaid - Hans Christian Andersen, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - The Little Mermaid Fusion, Little Mermaid Elements, Multi, Sestina
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-03
Updated: 2016-11-03
Packaged: 2018-03-21 00:47:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 1,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3671298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faerymorstan/pseuds/faerymorstan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Johnlockary retelling of Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Mermaid" told entirely in sestinas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Violsva](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Violsva/gifts).



> it's the, uh, johnlockary "little mermaid" sestinas you never knew you never wanted? idek, guise.
> 
> i have no idea how long this thing will take to finish. i'm having fun, at least. *shrugs*
> 
> violsva, i adore you and i hope this is okay.

Once upon a time and

deep beneath the surface

of a sea no man could sound,

there lived a mermaid fair

of neither fin nor feature, keen

to breach the waves and light

 

upon a stone, a shore, a place where light

would prove sailors more than shadows and

air would carry, clearer still than water, the keen

that each ship sang strange along the surface.

The mermaid’s ear for tongues was passing fair,

and she swam fast and reckless toward the sound

 

of words whose rhythms she repeated, the sound

a tide that tugged toward meaning and left her light

of head--the law forbid her swim so close to the fair

sun or to ships whose songs drew her siren-near--and

yet the mermaid, longing fierce to _know_ , would surface

where sailors cast their nets or whet their daggers keen.

 

Each time the mermaid’s journeys were discovered, the keen

her mother made would send her seeking shelter from the sound;

her father would swear that she would never see the surface,

not again, not if she lived a mollusk’s age or if the light

above the water were found to cure some ill. The mermaid wept and

stormed and pleaded that, only child though she was, it wasn’t _fair_

 

to trap her so, to keep her from the songs she found so fair

and the sailors she found so--whose tongues she was so keen

to learn. Her parents held fast, barnacles to a hull, and

recited again and again the litany whose unchanging sound

the mermaid came to loathe: her sight, over distance, was poor in any light;

her appendix, long since burst, had left across the surface

 

of her skin a scar--a scar!--and she must take care lest the surface,

having been so long troubled, omen a graver wound beneath; her fair

skin was like to burn even in the least direct of light;

her ideals were the feeble stuff of youth, and she was far too keen

to judge an act or to start a fight; her morals were, as yet, less than sound,

and sailors were known to take… advantage, should a mermaid show herself, and--.

 

The mermaid’s gaze never left the surface, returning always to the light.

In her every inch of skin and in her every scale, she longed for _above_ , for the fair things that dwelled just beyond her reach:

the keen blades, the sound ships, the nets that once thrown could not be uncast. 

 


	2. Chapter 2

The waves flowed by. The mermaid's need

to _know_ grew greater with her age; alone,

she left her parents' home and made

her way through shipwrecks and through

stone, though valleys carved beneath the sea

by tides no living soul recalled. The dark

 

was said to hide a cave that hid a witch whose dark

enchantments stripped the merfolks' need

to stay beneath the surface of the sea

and let them breathe the sky. For that alone,

the mermaid would have risked the way through

paths no decent soul would seek: she made

 

her journey pass with thoughts of how she made

her self from all she was, the bright and dark

(she lied; she fought; she rarely thought things through)

each given equal heft, and should she need,

the better to learn more, to live alone,

or do what others dread, or leave the sea

 

in which she'd always moved, the sea

where all her memories were made,

she would--but _oh_. There stood alone

an entrance to a cave whose glow the dark

could not contain. The mermaid's need

beat its way around her veins and through

 

her heart and gills as wearily she swam through

the frigid sunless stretch of sea

between her and the light she'd need

to learn all that which had been made

and kept beyond her reach. The dark

around her flashed with eyes and eyes alone

 

and still it was unsettled and alone

she felt as she approached the glow and through

the cave's mouth called, _Hello? Please come. The dark_

_is far from empty, and I swam the sea_

_so long alone that any effort made_

_to hurt me would, I fear, succeed. I need--._

 

A voice both dark and firm replied, _Come, and come alone,_

_you fool. You need not call your weakness through_

_the sea for all to hear. Come, and hush. Let us make of you what can be made._


	3. Chapter 3

The mermaid understood the rule: to show

to none what made her weak, lest someone spy

her doubt or fear. _You’re bright, but if you trust_

_to all your secret self, your gifts will hold_

_no power, your skills and intellect no use,_

the witch explained. A sharp and eerie light

 

shone bright: the witch kept jellyfish to light

the cave in blues and greens that only show

their richness far beneath the waves. _We use_

_merfolk like you at the surface to spy_

_upon the human ships whose vast nets hold_

_whole shoals of fish. All those who break our trust_

 

_\--who take too much from us, who will not trust_

_our firm ‘No more’--we send to face the light_

_the dead alone can see._ The witch took hold

of the mermaid’s hands and said, _Your eyes show_

_plain how fierce you long to be a spy._

_Know that I will train you, aye, and also use_

 

_you, once I know your depths. I will use_

_without mercy the agent you become. Trust_

_in that. Now: is it still your wish to spy,_

_though what I ask may gall you, though the light_

_you take by force from a sailor’s eyes may show_

_you what you do not wish to know? Good. Hold_

 

_fast to me and swear that you will hold_

_in your heart all that you learn and will use_

_what I teach to you in confidence to show_

_the humans not to violate our trust._

The mermaid swore. The cave filled fast with light.

 _Well said. You’re mine,_ the witch said to her spy,

 

_and you shall learn from me that what you spy_

_above the surface is like to hold_

_more secrets than the sun above has light._

The mermaid glowed: at last, she’d found a use

for what she was and someone she could trust

to let her study what she liked, to show

 

her ships and sails and light she’d yet to spy.

The mermaid said, _My poor manners show. My name is--._  The witch said, _No! Hold_

_your tongue, fool. Make me earn your trust._


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here there be murder and blood.

The mermaid trained; she learned to turn

a piece of driftwood deadly sharp,

to track the ships and by their shape

and sails know each one by sight, 

to read the tides and rocks and hide

where none could see her sit and look

 

upon her target. With one look,

she would gauge how far the ship should turn

before she'd throw her spear and hide

to wait for the telltale sound: sharp

slap of flesh on water. The sight

of her first kill, the dead man’s shape

 

a haze of spreading blood whose shape

shifted with the waves, made her look

to the witch and grin. _A glad sight,_

Janine confirmed, _and now we turn_

_for home. You, my dear, have grown sharp_

_enough to skin a human’s hide._

 

Anaïs (long since, the need to hide

had passed) watched Janine’s smooth shape

wend through the carious and sharp

stones outside their cave. _Oh, the look_

_on your face gave me such a turn,_

Janine laughed. _To enjoy the sight_

 

_of a man from whom you stole sight_

_and breath alike?_ Anaïs couldn’t hide

her smile. _You said it was his turn,_

the mermaid said, studying the shape

of Janine’s face. Though the mermaid look

and look, she saw no longer the sharp

 

witch she first met: only the sharp

wit of a friend she loved, the sight

of whom was joy and who with a look

could show her true self--or could hide.

When Anaïs had seen her true shape

she had gasped, for though Janine could turn

 

her look more aged at will, she was of an age with Anaïs. A sharp

pang made Anaïs’ stomach turn; she’d killed, she’d liked the sight,

and she could hide from neither herself nor her friend her heart’s true shape.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *shows up to the fic fifteen years late with starbucks*
> 
> idek guise. i'm sorry for not updating and i'm sorry for updating. *leslie knope voice* everything hurts and i'm dying.
> 
> but also writing. maybe i'll finish this poor fic before climate change kills us all. *tepid hope confetti*

_The shaking sea foretells a storm,_

thought Anaïs, her body cold upon the rock

from which she scanned unending grey. The wind

whipped waves across her scales, struck

strands of salt-soaked hair against her face.

She’d found her ship _(you’ll know it by the dead_

 

 _eyes of its captain,_ Janine had sworn, _by the eddying dead_

_in the bleached reef of his shark’s grin, by the storm_

_of mutiny scarce stifled on his every crewer’s face)_

but thought the captain would not chance the jagged rock

between the open water and the shore: if the storm struck

before the ship reached land, the lashing wind

 

would splinter planks and masts alike and wind

the waves in swirling shrouds about the dead.

A wasted day’s surveillance, then; struck

by her body’s deep fatigue, Anaïs felt the anger storm

within her breast. She pressed her palms against the rock

and pushed away, resolved to dive, but turned her face

 

once more toward the shark-eyed captain’s ship - to face,

she thought, a target out of reach, but found instead that wind

snapped the sails and the ship careened to shore, each rock

from port to starboard larger than the last, its course dead

set for ruin… oh, how Anaïs laughed! What fools, to let the storm

complete her task! Gusts blew; lightning flashed; thunder struck;

 

one by one, the crewers tossed as refuse from the deck struck

the sea. Anaïs, her eyes narrowed in the rain, searched each face

for the shark-eyed captain; she would bring him death, if the storm--.

The captain! _There!_ And not alone: She watched a dark-haired crewer wind

his fingers tighter ‘round the sword froze sharp between them. Grim as one already dead,

the crewer pushed. An instant passed - perhaps an age - he closed the gap. Split the skin. Laid bare the white rock

 

of the captain’s skull. The meat that had been captain sank; the crewer clinged to jagged rock;

Anaïs thrashed to meet him, shivered when he screamed - _John!_. His terror struck

her hard as any bullet. _John!_ She flicked her frantic gaze across the drowning and the dead

until she found the one from whom the deadly crewer could not look away: blue lips in a blue face

and blood spinning lazy as seaweed from his spar-pierced shoulder and the wind

no the water no the _wind_ left her lungs, the water left her gills, the storm

 

without her was dead still before the storm

within her; she moved as foam on the water, held close John’s warm body, carried him to shore, laid between him and the wind,

struck again and again between John’s ribs to force the water from his lungs, watched for movement in his strong and fragile face.


End file.
